I originally wrote this piece as a guest post about tabletop game design for Hyperbole Games.

The market is saturated with game mechanics,and it's only getting more saturated over time. Games aren't un-inventing themselves.

Because of this, 99+% of games are merely existing mechanics combined in a new way or with a new theme slapped on them. These games can certainly be fun and successful, but will have a far harder time standing out than a game with a completely fresh mechanic.

And this, friends, is why developing a new mechanic is the holy grail of game design.

So if you can come up with a mechanic that is both fun and novel, you should strongly consider developing it. That is one of the surest ways to create a unique game that has a chance of standing out amongst the crowd.

This can be a great way to design a game: find a fresh, fun mechanic (easier said than done) then figure out a game to fit around it.

Here are some games that did exactly that:

Apples to Apples - The mechanic: judge which player-chosen noun best describes your adjective. Brilliant. The dynamics change with every set of players because there is creative input.

Trivial Pursuit – The mechanic: guess the answers to insignificant questions. The pies and the board could have been designed a hundred different functional ways, and it would barely matter because the central mechanic is so strong.

Pictionary - The key mechanic isyour partner has to guess what you’re quickly drawing. Another simple concept constructed into a wildly successful game.

Magic: The Gathering – the mechanic: construct a deck from spells you find, by chance, in booster packs, then face off with other players. The game has many details, but the overarching mechanic has helped render it one of the most successful games of all time.

These examples may sound dated, but you recognize them because they were (and still are) wildly successful. Yes, Hungry Hungry Hippos is on this list. To find success, you don't need to design a game with an instruction manual as long and tedious as, say, waiting for your damn friends to finish taking their turns in Settlers. Quite the opposite. The more mechanics you have, the more watered-down your gameis (unless your entire game is about exceptions, like CCGs). You want only as many mechanics as you need, and no more -- especially if you have a new mechanic! Don't hide it behind a bunch of noise!

So how do you find your holy grail? Start by understanding what kind of mechanics you are the most drawn to. Which ones get you the most excited, the most emotional... make you want to play for hours or throw that scheming troublemaker next to you into a running jet engine. Maybe you like deck building. Or traitors. Maybe voting, bidding, or trade. Perhaps storytelling. Or lying. Then brainstorm around those and combinations thereof to see if you happen upon something new.

Also, try and figure out why you like those mechanics, and imagine similar concepts in real life that may not have been applied to gaming yet. Yes – if you want a new mechanic, you might be better served searching for inspiration outside of gaming. What mechanics do people use in interesting or desperate situations in real life? Why do conflicts arise and how are they solved or manipulated? There are countless places to look for inspiration. You can look to math. Or nature. Or politics. And so on.

For example, a movie scene just came to mind – it’s an action movie with two heroes held hostage. They can escape, but can’t communicate by speaking or they’ll be heard and give up their plan. Maybe there’s a mechanic in there. Could we design a fun game where…

It’s everyone (the “good” players) against a villain, and the villain has to wear a blindfold for certain quick timed portions of the game.

The good players can only win by exchanging vital information.

But the good players can’t talk because if the villain overhears, it will put him at an advantage. So in the quick times when the villain is blindfolded, the good players must frantically try to convey as much info as possible to each other through gestures and signals.

What’s the new mechanic here? Timed windows of opportunity to communicate vital information while impaired. Is it fun? Maybe. Maybe not. Any possible new mechanic deserves some investigation. Perhaps the players are drawing cards, so they never know what they’re communicating ahead of time. Or perhaps there’s an element of lying that can be involved, “accidentally” being overheard communicating misinformation to mislead the villain. Or maybe players would develop a system while the villain is blindfolded, then use that system to communicate when he’s not. And maybe we mix it up and sometimes the villain is blindfolded, sometimes he can’t hear, sometimes both, sometimes neither – you never know.

The point is: there are plenty of these unfound mechanics waiting to be discovered and toyed with, and hopefully with a little persistence you can make them fun and design them into a game that will stand out as unique. And hey, maybe you’ll even hit the mass market.

Or you can design a game with a bunch of resources. Some wood, perhaps. Or stone – stone’s a popular one these days. And cards that alter the number of resources you get. Like cloth or gold, which you can spend on more cards. And then make the scoring complicated, where you have to add up a bunch of stuff at the end and you never really know who wins until you do some calculus. Then you know you’ve got a great game, right?

Why don’t you look for your holy grail instead?

Because it’s out there... waiting for you to find it, waiting for you to influence the gaming industry forever and inspire countless generations of games to come.

… growing up, I design games that aren’t much fun, but I have a great time doing it.

… I eventually make an amateur game that people enjoy.

… I drop out of school to become a game designer.

… I beg to be a design intern and I tell companies I’ll work for free.

… I enroll in one of those new-fangled game design programs.

… I finally design a feature for a professional game.

… I design major systems for a game.

… I ship a game.

… I go to the store on launch day to watch fans pick up copies of my game. And then I pose with them in a photo, holding armfuls of my game with a stupid grin.

… I spend hours, days reading Amazon reviews and posts in our forums. I can’t stop; it’s like a drug. Players love our game, and I love our players. I get giddy. But players hate our game, too. I get furious. I am forever influenced.

… I ship a sequel to that game.

… I’m about to ship another game, and it has already been pirated and is available on the internet.

… I balance an entire game. It takes weeks. It feels wrong. So I balance it again. And again. After it’s perfect, we release, and players find ways to break the economy within hours.

… I work on new IP.

… I have to cut 70% of the entire game because it’s so over scope. It nearly destroys my soul.

… I come to enjoy the process of cutting and scoping. It makes my designs clean and elegant.

… I spend four years on a project that gets cancelled.

… I have total faith in my designs, but when I play them, they’re terrible. I rework them. I think they’re finally good. Players get confused in focus tests. I rework them again. Some end up great. Others get cut.

… I design a game that I can’t bear to see.

… I get hate mail. It scars me and I eat soup in bed and consider becoming a doctor, someone who can make a serious difference in life.

… I design a game that’s a success. I momentarily wonder if I can ever do that again.

… I secretly think my designs are better than anyone else’s.

… I secretly think my designs are boring and uninspired.

… I become a lead designer.

… I then realize my design opinions aren’t as important as supporting my team of designers, even if we disagree.

… I care so strongly that I uncharacteristically yell and swear in meetings to protect certain designs.

… I become a creative director.

… I pitch revolutionary ideas and concepts. But they’re too crazy.

… I work on a game that sells one million copies. Five million copies. Ten million copies.

… my game scores 95 on Metacritic and wins Game of the Year in the Game Developer Choice Awards.

… the game I designed lives on years after launch, a new team keeps releasing content for it, and I’m excited about that.

… I design a game with one of my favorite celebrities in it, but never get to meet that celebrity. But we get a mannequin with one of her dresses in our lobby.

… I go to the GDC five years in a row. Ten years in a row. Twenty years. I’m inspired every time.

… I give a game design talk at the GDC. I make a name for myself. I burn or tear money on stage to make a point.

… I start a blog. And the more I talk about design, the less I actually design.

… my shelf is packed with games I’ll never have time to play.

… I no longer play games until I beat them. The games that I do play, I often play just once. I see flaws in design everywhere and the games are nothing new.

… occasionally I find a great game that I want to play for hundreds of hours, but then I feel guilty that I’m not trying other games to expand my horizons.

… I have pages and pages of design notes for games I will never have the time to make.

… I work for 5 years jumping from team to team, and never ship a single project.

… I denounce the corporate culture and quit to join a startup.

… I work for a well-funded startup with rock-star executives. It falls apart.

… I work for a different startup, and realize startups aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

… I consider working for Zynga, and then I do.

… I consider working for Zynga, and then I don’t. But half of my friends do.

… I work on a Facebook game that 100,000,000 people play.

… I work for yet another startup, and it takes off. We get bought out.

… I get fed up with the mass market, and quit to go design indie games. Games that will be hailed as art.

… I release an indie game and only five people play it. It breaks my heart. But those five people are awesome.

… I travel from game jam to game jam, chasing novelty and heartbreaking works of staggering genius.

… I make an indie game with meaningful gameplay, and have to live with my parents so I have someone to remind me to eat and to not die.

… I design something truly original that the world has never seen.

… I earn over $50 million selling my game’s beta build on my website.

… a fan recognizes me.

… fans recognize me wherever I go. And they want to know if I’ll ever get around to making a new game.

… fans stop recognizing me. Or maybe I never had any.

… I return to my old job because the corporate culture is great and I miss my team.

… I pull all-nighters and crunch for months on end. Not because my boss makes me, but because I want to make an incredible game.

… I design a game that makes players laugh and smile, that makes them shout and cry.

Speaking of writing: I recently published a novel series about a company that grows a super-intelligent human in a computer and the mayhem that results. It is something I am truly happy with. Check it out here.

About the Author

I make stuff up. Creator of Merge Dragons. 10 Year vet of Maxis as Lead Designer & Creative Director on The Sims, turned indie. Now all things Merge with Gram Games! Also, a self-proclaimed mental-neurosurgeon.